"Ignatius columns on Saudi Arabia break down roughly into two groups: straight reporting mixed with spin and concern trolling, and outright press releases documenting the dictatorship’s spectacular reforms. First the latter:"

Here, it claims that Hasan Nasrallah has a private wealth of $250 million. It cites "some news websites". You click on the link, and it takes you to the Gulf-funded Mossadist Mujahdi Khalq organization. The site then cites "Saudi newspapers" (which as you know adheres to the highest standards of journalism), which in turn cites "US intelligence reports". But not even Israeli and US media make that claim. Welcome to the Huffington Post Arabic.

The role of think tanks in DC has changed. Their ties have also changed. Brookings for example hosted academic work in the past and was relatively politically courageous in defying in the mid-1070s the DC consensus about Palestinian rights (mildly of course, or slightly). William B Quandt produced work on Palestinian nationalism while Jerry Hough produced work on the new generation of Soviet leadership. Hicham Sharabi produced a book early in the 1970s on Palestinian "guerrillas", based on research Sharabi conducted in Jordan. The role of think tanks have changed: they have become all tied to Gulf regime funding and subsumed under the umbrella of the Zionist lobby. The 1991 US war on Iraq was the watershed: since then, the new alliance between Gulf regimes and Israel started to form, and Israeli opposition to US arm sales to Gulf regimes ended. They both collaborated to work against Palestinian interests. Furthermore, Gulf funding was no more controversial. This was the time when the Clinton administration under Martin Indyk officially killed off the entire contingent of Arabists at the US government. Robert Kaplan's book on them was more like an obituary. For that reason, and out of desperation for funding. think tanks because largely vehicles for Gulf and Israeli propaganda. Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs said (after announcing more than $ 10 million in donations to Brookings) that the think tank will help paint a "rosy picture" of Qatar. there are similar arrangements with other think tank. Look at the Hariri Center at Atlantic Council: they tweet around the clock on various aspects of Middle East politics (but always from the AIPAC standards) and yet not a word about Palestinian affairs. Not a word. So Geneieve Abdo (who was a resident fellow at the Hariri Center) published a book a few months ago about The New Sectarianisms: The Arab Uprisings and the Rebirth of the Shi`a-Sunni Divide. I honestly can't think about a worse book in recent years. It is rather shocking. This was published by (the New York branch) of Oxford University Press, although the contents of the book are to academic production what tomatoes are to Tabbuleh. She tries hard in the book to sound original and the results are rather comical. She tells the reader early on that the most consuming political and intellectual issue among Arabs/Muslim is the question: Who is a true believer and who is a non-believer (p. 1). Only someone who has not read one Arabic article or book by Arabs would make this claim. This is someone who clearly knows what she knows about the region from what she reads in Western media and in MEMRI video clips. Her book is so brimming with Gulf propaganda that she maintains that the Middle East region was dominated by "Western-style nationalism" (p. 4) until the Iranian revolution erupted. Yes, Geneive: Saudi and Gulf regimes were in fact Western-style democracies until the Iranian revolution spoiled the fun. She expresses surprise that Western analysis did not pay attention to religion in the region until recently (I am not kidding, she said that, p. 6). She also justifies Gulf oppression because she said that they fear democracy simply because they fear She`ite domination (p. 8). But wait: she then talks about intellectual and academic currents. Here, she says that Western analysis suffers from disregard of the role of religion in Arab politics. With the plethora of books on Islam since the 1970s, and the heavy dosages of theologcentrism in Western analysis and scholarship, Geneieve wants you to pay more attention to Islam and religious analysis of the region (p. 9). But Genieve even ventures on issues relating to Islamic history: watch her here: "The history of the Sunni-Shi`a rift is, essentially, a history of the present" (p. 10). I mean if this does not impress you as philosophical and historiographical, nothing will impress you. And then she takes case studies of sectarianism: there isn't a world that could not have the stamp of approval from the nearest Saudi embassy and consulate. Look at her section on Lebanon: she mentions Nabil Halabi (a Salafite advocate and the head of what he calls the Lebanon Coordination Committee of the Syrian Revolution, as "a human rights lawyer" (p. 91). This is like identifying Ayman Dhawahiri as "a medical expert". Here entire Lebanon section is a compilation of the talking points of the Hariri press office. On p. 94, she manages to interview a man she identifies as "a founder" of the Lebanese Armed Forces, i.e., the Lebanese Army. So the Lebanese Army was founded (by the French as Legions of the East) back in 1916. So let us assume that this founder of the army was 20 at the time, so he is now over a hundred years of age. If only she named that man for us. She then interviews the spokesperson of the Alawite Arab Democratic Party, `Ali Fudda. She attributes terrible sectarian anti-Sunni sentiments and expressions to him, which surprised me. He never speaks in sectarian terms despite his position in a predominantly a Alawite party in Lebanon. So I asked him when I first read the book months ago about that, and he categorically denied and he even posted on Facebook an official detail in which he said that what Genieve attributed to him was false and untrue. She even maintains that "many Shia" associates "all Sunnis with Wahhabism". She provides no evidence or example here (p. 97), but that is the nature of her documentation. Either flimsy or no evidence at all. She identifies that Hariri family chief of security, Wissam Hasan (the man who sponsored Salafi and terrorist groups in Lebanon and Syria and who more than anyone else in Lebanon is responsible for spilling blood in Tripoli and in Syria since 2011) as "a respected Sunni security chief" (p. 98). She talks about one day of May 7, 2008 as "the Karbala' of Sunnis" (here she cites an MP in the Hariri parliamentary bloc, p 101). When she talks about Alawites in Lebanon, she cites a man who appears on her pages as a historian when he is really another MP in the Hariri parliamentary bloc (Ahmad Fatfat, p. 108). She talks about Salafites who are sympathetic to Al-Qa`idah in Lebanon in rather glowing terms (and she does not even mention that they are funded by Gulf regimes). The worst part of her book is her reference to Sheikh Ahmad Al-Asir (a man who sits in Lebanese jail and has been sympathetic to Al-Qa`idah and ISIS): she claims that Shi`ites manufactured and distributed a toy which produces anti-Sunni invective. Asir (before his arrest) made that claim in a speech, and all Lebanese media at the time investigated the claim and brought those US-manfactured the toys and showed that they produce English words and have nothing to do with Arabic. Even Asir related conceded that he was "in error" but Genieve repeated the outrageous claim (p. 112). But like most Western correspondents she assures readers that Hizbullah losing support among She`ites: her source her (and elsewhere) is a pro-Hariri journalist (p. 114). In the section on Bahrain, she clearly and ceagorially identifies with the repression and autocracy of the ruling dynasty. She tells you that they crush opposition because they are afraid of Iranian intervention (p. 118). She adds that Iranian propaganda is rather scary to the democratic regimes of the Gulf. But she found evidence of Iranian intervention in Bahrain: she found out that a Bahraini cleric had studied in Iran. Imagine. The horrors. And when there is no evidence, Genieve fabricates evidence: she basically claims that Iranian and Hizbullah media conceded that they were behind the Bahrain opposition protests. Imagine. This is what is being produced by Gulf-funded think tanks in DC.

Notice how Zionist publications try to associate pro-Palestinian activism with repugnant anti-Semitic expressions. Once again: anti-Semites don't belong to pro-Palestinian activism and should be categorically excluded and shunned.

From Basim: Saudi: "Syria’s Assad tells interviewer: ‘Yes, you are now sitting with the devil’

Russian: "Yes, from a Western perspective, you are now sitting with the devil. This is how they market it in the west," Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told teleSUR's Rolando Segura in an exclusive interview from Damascus ..."

He says that Muhammad bin Salman is LBJ, JFK, Thatcher, Churchill, Netanyahu, Reagan, Jackson, Trump and Peron all combined in one: "This is because Saudis are looking to the 31-year old Deputy Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, to ensure equality. Despite the many challenges, he is attempting to undertake LBJ-like social reforms and Thatcher-like economic reforms in a country that is infamously resistant to change".

"High up on Israel’s list of fabricated and otherwise shamelessly embellished achievements is that of having allegedly “made the desert bloom” promptly after setting up shop on usurped Palestinian land in 1948. Never mind that Palestine wasn’t exactly a desert - or that “blooming” techniques involved mass slaughter as well as plenty of ecological devastation." (thanks Amir)

In the scene between the grizzly bear and Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie The Revenent, which I tried several times to watch but was never able to finish, I must confess that I found myself rooting for the bear against DiCaprio.

From Jörg in Berlin: "There is again a bizarre scandal about Germany's "deep state": "Franco A. is suspected of being a staunch right-wing extremist, full of hate for foreigners and prone to violence. Furthermore, at the end of 2015, he established a secret identity as a Syrian refugee. One of the theories investigators are pursuing is that Franco A. had hoped to implicate refugees in the act of violence he was planning."

"I have a Christian wife; I have twin sons, one of whom is convinced he's Jewish, and one of whom, after he read the Ramayana, was like, "That's it, I'm Hindu." I have a two-year-old boy that we just assume is a reincarnation of the Buddha in some way. So every Sunday, we get together and share one particular religious story, whether it's of the Buddha or Ganesha or from the Gospel, and then we pick some value to learn from it, and then we, as a family, put that value into practice in our home and in our lives." This so strikes me as charlatanism.

This should be remembered by all those who tried to beautify the lousy record of Bernie Sanders--the one who suffers from the same disease of political cowardice which afflicts all members of US Congress especially when it comes to Israel. Notice that the signatories don't shy away form threatening and blackmailing the UN on behalf of Israel. All UN agencies are judged purely on the basis of their services to Israel. (thanks Eyal)

Watch this segment of a speech by Macron. What a lousy candidate. How uninspiring. Hillary Clinton (who has no charisma whatsoever) has more charisma than this man. This guy has less oratorical skills than Cicero of the Syrian opposition. But as a friend always says: never underestimate the propensity of the French people to prefer the most boring candidate.

This blogger on Aljazeera website has an article titled "I won't marry a working woman". He says that among the many reasons is that he can't "enjoy her cooking and her summaries of what she read in his absence" if she is working outside the home.

Hearings in the US Congress about Syria are rather hilarious. They bring in different viewpoints in this way: one speaks for Israel, another speaks for Qatari regime and another speaks for Saudi regime. This passes as "different perspectives" in the lousy US Congress.

He said: "The Arab world expelled about 900,000 Jews after 1948." This is a flat out lie. He basically counted all Arab Jews who left voluntarily (mostly) and those (a minority) who were expelled from Arab countries. He uses the typical Zionist tactics in dealing with the issue of Arab Jews. Take the Jews of Syria: when Syrian Jews lived in Syria, Zionist propagandists/hoodlums screamed and yelled around the world and said that Syrian Jews are held against their will and that they should be allowed to leave Syria, and that their living in Syria is a humanitarian situation, although they lived in Syria liked other Syrians and their repression was not different than the repression of Hafidh Al-Asad regime against all Syrians. So the US government pressured the Asad government in the 1980s, and he then allowed Syrian Jews to leave. As soon as the Syrian Jews were allowed to leave, Zionist propagandists/hoodlums started to scream and yell: look, Syrian Jews have been expelled from Syria. Those should be conflated with the Palestinians who were expelled by Israeli occupation state from their homeland. Also, the numbers used by the fabricator Stephens are out of whack: those who were actually expelled (or more accurately encouraged to leave or terrorized into leaving by Mossad covert operations including bombing campaigns) were Iraqi Jews (around 100,000 as other left on their own) and some 30,000 from Egypt after Lavon Affair and the tripartite invasion of Egypt. But even in those two cases were terrible expulsion (or encouragement of flight or terrorization by Mossad terrorists) of Jews occurred: Israeli government participated directly or through covert operations to have them expelled. In Iraq, there was Operation Babylon which scared and encouraged and terrorized Iraqi Jews to lead to their explosion, and in Egypt Lavon Affair clearly jeopardized the plight of Egyptian Jews. Israel in general jeopardized the status of all Arab Jews by insisting that it represented all Jews of the world including Arab Jews, and it directly pressured Western government to pressure Arab governments to "release" Arab Jews. Of course, Arab Jews should be allowed to return (unless they joined the Israeli terrorist state) and they are entitled to their property or to compensation for confiscated property (unless they were part of the Israeli terrorist state and its military-intelligence apparatus). To support the rights of Arab Jews (who belong to Arab countries) is unrelated to one's support of the full return of all Palestinian refugees to their homeland of Palestine within the borders of 1948 Palestine.PS Of course, the cases were Iraqi Jews were stripped of their citizenship it happened with direct pressures and secret deals between the Zionist British government and its clients in the Iraqi government. But all cases of stripping of citizenship or of confiscation of property were right in the presence of Mossad agents who were encouraging such measures for the demographic benefit of the Israeli occupation state. See the book by Abbas Shiblaq on Iraqi Jews and this article by Lebanese historian Mahmoud Haddad.PPS Don't forget the most anti-Semitic voice in Iraq during those times was none other than Nuri As-Sa`id, the tool of British colonialism.

Israeli occupation forces arrested since 1967 and until April of 2016 around 1 million Palestinian (men, women and children). There has been more than 95000 arrests since 2000. There are now some 7000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, including 68 female prisoners and more than 400 children, and 750 administrative detention, and 500 serving life sentences. Israel arrested 6830 Palestinians since 2015, including 2179 children and 225 female prisoners. And since the beginning of the is year, Israel has arrested around 2000 Palestinians.

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Just there are anti-Semites who say: but there are Jews who said that: "It just struck me as a very tendentious reading of the column. I am by not any means indicting a whole race. The word mind itself — do you know that you don’t have a mind? It is a figure of speech, right? So I was using it as a figure of speech — which, by the way, I can find Arab authors talking about “the pathologies of the Arab mind.”" He then goes on to decide to rank anti-Semitic countries. What ranking is that? how is that decided?

"The unprecedented spectacle appeared to be a deliberate and calculated breach of a UN Security Council resolution that bans non-state forces from bearing arms in southern Lebanon, and it illustrated the unmatched sway Hezbollah wields, and the impunity it enjoys throughout the country." Maybe he should talk to people of South Lebanon once in a while. Instead of taking marching orders from the Hariri family in Beirut and Riyadh. (thanks Basim)

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

I am opposed to leftist participation in muzzling freedom of speech on college campuses. Remember that the game can turn around. Leftists and progressives are far more likely to suffer from repression than rightist. I have always been of the view that rightist and racist speakers should be allowed to speak--and should be ignored by progressives. Of couse, they can be protested but not muzzled.

On US role in arming the right-wing militias of Lebanon: "As`ad AbuKhalil treats Stocker’s book as a “welcome addition” to the literature on Lebanon, but believes the
author is too cautious in some of his conclusions. The main point that he insists on is that the U.S. role was
more intentionally destabilizing in Lebanon than Stocker is willing to acknowledge. In his view, the lack of
archival evidence for a U.S. role in arming some of the right-wing Christian militias does not mean that such
arms transfers did not happen. AbuKhalil is correct that such transfers, if they took place, would have been
handled by the CIA, and those archives have not been made available. My sense is that a modest supply of
arms did go to some of the Christian militias in the early 1970s, although the dominant view in the State
Department was to be very wary of getting close to the more militant of the militia leaders. It will probably
remain an unanswerable question for some time as to the magnitude and significance of U.S. aid to former
Lebanese President Camille Chamoun and the Phalangists. By the time I was in a position to know the details
of such transactions in the Carter Administration, such aid had come to an end."

"The boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel is winning, a top anti-BDS strategist has conceded." "An entire government department – the Ministry of Strategic Affairs led by Gilad Erdan – is now devoted to combating BDS." (thanks Amir)

This is classic. AUB fired Sadiq Al-Azm when he was a popular professor and wrote two books on Kant. The only reason he was fired was political: he spoke against the American administration and Charles Malik (as he told me the story) was agitating against him and the Americans running the school hated him. And now after his death, and only after Al-Azm became an anti-leftist, AUB decides to honor him. Such hypocrisy.

I like the account of his studies in Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat (the mouthpiece of Salman and his sons). It said that he was attending Georgetown for an MA in "security studies" (and degrees in security studies and terrorism studies are--in my opinion--as academically sound as degrees in fried potato studies) and then "he suspended his studies...due to different work tasks". I kid you not. Let me translate the Saudi Wahhabi language: he failed his classes.

The (short) TV series, “Feud: Bette and Joan,” is TV at its best. It was quite entertaining. Of course, the entire premise is quite sexist: feuds between women are always highlighted and exaggerated and they make for good TV, but feuds between men--which are far more destructive--are ignored. Jessica Lange's performance was splendid.

From an informed Saudi student: It reads (my translation) from Arabic: "I have quick notes..through which I wish to transmit our views as citizens (subjects) of Salman and his sons:
These comprehensive decisions cover more than one sector and section of the state after the insinuation by Muhammad bin Salman on more than one occasion to the importance of the views of people and citizens as to what is happening regarding decisions including Vision 2030. And those statements appeared in the official and non official news and appeared more than once in his public meetings on occasions. it is clear that he is not like other princes in his policies and wants (or wants it to appear as if) he takes public preferences and satisfaction into consideration.
The decisions included restoring the salary increases for civil and military employees which were canceled months ago. And this text of the royal decree at the behest of Prince Muhammad Bin Salman. This does not conceal his desperate efforts to attain popularity and reputation among people in the wake of widespread currents of dissatisfaction and opposition in private gatherings against the new austerity policies. And this makes Muhammad bin Salman a hero who listened to the people and responded to their needs.
Changes included the military forces and the commander of the ground troops was replaced by one of the sons of Faysal. And the spokesperson of the Aggression on Yemen, Ahmad Al-`Asiri, was made deputy intelligence chief. And there was a weird phrase cited in the order to release double salaries for actual soldiers in the front lines in resisting the Yemeni attacks on the South (although we all know that those who do the actual work in the ground troops against the army and popular committees are the mercenaries from South Yemen).
As one looks closely at the new princes appointed one notices two things: 1) they are form the young generation to which Muhammad belongs. 2) he appointed his brothers and nephews in important posts like his brother as ambassador in DC (the same pilot who bombed Syria), and another brother as an official in the sector of energy and his nephew is now deputy (or superintendent) of the Eastern Province (and it is an important province which deals with "deals" and internal home affairs inside the royal family as important as defense and oil for its economic importance). These appointments are important and significant.
The school year was shorted so that the final exams are given before Ramadan, and thus we now have the longest summer vacation in the history of the kingdom. And this pleases me as a student of course.
Of course, we are looking at these analysis and decisions in terms of the potential conflict between son of Salman and son of Nayif over seizure of the crown."

Look at this distasteful article by Ms. Barnard. Notice that she invoked the clearly racist terminology of "Muslims-versus-Muslims". This racist terminology was borrowed from Apartheid South Africa when the regime talked about "blacks-killing-blacks", as if Muslims are killing other Muslims for being Muslims or as if when "Muslims-are-killing-Muslims" the Western governments are not involved. There is no case of civil war or conflict in the Middle East in which Western governments are not directly involved in arming or abetting or inciting or funding one side against another, and in perpetuating the conflict. Name one conflict in the last fifty years in which US/Israel were not directly involved. Just one. But it is rather classic that Ms. Barnard basically is lamenting that the US did not invade and occupy Syria. Because she can't be complaining about US not intervening in Syria; US intervened in Syria and bombed and funded and armed rebel groups but it was not to the tune that Ms. Barnard and other Western correspondents in Beirut wanted. Notice that their only concern about Trump's bombing (as much as they cheered it) was that it was not more massive bombing. Those are the correspondents who are not happy unless the US invades and attacks massively. Of course, the motives of Ms. Barnard and others can't be humanitarian: can you imagine her daring to call for US to intervene militarily to attack Saudi Arabia? Ms. Barnard covered the last Israeli war on Gaza, and she never wrote an article in which she lamented the lack of Western intervention against Israel. Also, notice that her article did not mention Palestinians once. Not once. Western correspondents are only allow to cry and emote over cases when the one side is approved by Western governments. So the tears have to be authorized before hand. Also, look at this delicious quotation by a White Man: "“We’ve thrown values by the wayside, but also not been able to act in our own interests, because we let things go too long,” said Joost Hiltermann, a Dutch citizen who is the Middle East director for the International Crisis Group." What are "our values" here exactly? Are those the values of conquest and war and destruction and occupation? What values? And I like how Westerners act as if US reluctance to invade and attack Syria is the only glaring exception to US promotion of democracy and human rights throughout. They make it sound as if the US is promoting democracy and human rights in Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Oman and that Syria is the only exception to US democracy rule and that US needs to invade and occupy Syria in order for the Middle Eat regional order of democracy to complete. I mean, if you are someone form another planet, the scenario seems benevolent enough. Finally, has there been a regime change in which the US has been able to replace a lousy regime by a regime more lousy than the past one? Ever? The US in fact achieves miracles by arranging for a worse regime to always replace a brutal and lousy regime. It never fails. But Ms. Barnard was saying that Western governments upheld humanitarian values since WWII and for that reason she wants US to invade and occupy Syria to uphold those values.

I don't know why recently Western media (including The Intercept) have been referring to Yassin Has Saleh as "a leftist"--as in this reference in the Times: " said the Syrian dissident Yassin al-Haj Saleh, a secular leftist". The man never ever talks about himself being a leftist and he denounces leftists and leftism regularly in Arabic. In Arabic he always identifies as a liberal (in the Arab sense of being an Arab liberal, which usually means identification with the goals of Gulf regimes in the region). Also, Mr. Saleh writes in Al-Hayat (the mouthpiece of Prince Khalid Bin Sultan). The paper does not allow leftists to publish, only "Arab liberals", where they can have full freedoms to denounce leftists and leftism. I think that Western media want to accord him more legitimacy and they know that the word "liberal" is tainted in the Arab context and thus prefer to label him as a leftist. He is a former leftist, just as many of the writers in the Arab oil and gas media are former leftists. Big difference.

It is not easy for Saudis to communicate with the outside world but some still do using What'sup and Signal for their high levels of encryption--I am told. Young Saudis have become experts in such matters of communication and follow the tweets of Snowden very closely. Anyway, this is the what I gathered from my Saudi contacts: there was a lot of government anxiety and nervousness in the three days prior to the announcements yesterday. Saudi police was everywhere in Riyadh and helicopters were hovering over the city in anticipation of protests or demonstrations. They were afraid that public anger over the dire economic situation would spill over into the streets, and that women would launch protests. The MBC News program by Dawud Shiryan a week ago indicated the levels of public dissatisfaction. There have been many layoffs in companies and even Saudi newspapers (mouthpieces of Princes really) like Al-Hayat, suffered financial problems which is why the offices are being moved from London to Beirut. The firing of the Minister of Information was due to two matters: 1) young Saudis posted a video of him on Youtube in which they said he seemed drunk; 2) it was punishment because a Jordanian critic of Saudi regime was hosted on a Saudi regime channel (Al-Ikhbariyyah). The Minister of who will be investigated was fingered by young Saudis on Twitter. In Saudi regime, criticisms of non-royal ministers have become allowed (but not in foreign affairs).

There is a half-declared civil war in Saudi regime media: on the one side are those who are (falsely) called "liberal", and they are mostly right-wing Lebanese and some Saudis who wish to decrease the role of Islam in politics in favor of tighter rule by Saudi royals and who favor a close US-Saudi alliance, and on the other side are the more powerful (and popular) Islamist pro-Turkey (and pro-Ikhwan) camp which voices strong criticisms of Saudi regime media in London. Look at this hashtag campaign by Islamist Saudis against Al-Hayat (mouthpiece of Prince Khalid bin Sultan) due to criticisms against Erdogan in the paper. The campaign is titled "Al-Hayat Launches a crusading campaign against Turkey". This is not a subtle reference to Christians who work in regime paper (I notice that Gulf regime media have added "Christians" as of late to its list of hated groups, which focuses most on Shi`ites and Alawites.
https://twitter.com/hashtag/الحياة_تشن_حملة_صليبية_على_تركيا?src=hash

"“That missile strike certainly had to get Putin’s attention, and it did show we were determined to enforce international norms on chemical weapons,” said Antony J. Blinken, who was deputy secretary of state and deputy national security adviser in the Obama administration. “Equally important was the effort to tie Russia to the use of chemical weapons.”"

You honestly believe that of all the world literature, two out of six winners are Israelis based on merit and talent alone? You believe that? Of course, you can factor in the fact that Israeli "literature" (and even gasps and yawns) is instantly translated into English (far more than literature from Latin America and Africa and Asia) but this love and bias for Israel is way out of whack. You are telling me that 2 out of 6 deserve to be Israelis?

"The only modern president who rivaled Donald Trump in his lack of preparation for global leadership was Harry Truman. " You mean not counting Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Lyndon Johnson, and Gerald Ford?

People ask me why I read the New York Times religiously. I say: for the same reasons that people in Saudi Arabia read Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat or people in Syria read Tishrin. You need to know what the regime is plotting against you.

"But he is by nature a bully in a culture that admires displays of strength." As opposed to the West, where there is no admiration for displays of strength? In the week when Trump witnessed his popularity rise purely for bombing other countries?

"he found peasant women sitting there, with “bundles and baskets and big handkerchiefs around their heads,” seated on “benches rubbed dull with waiting.” Long after the Revolution and all its world-changing promises had settled into a grim stasis, waiting was still a Russian specialty." I don't get it. So people don't wait in capitalistic countries?

"But the larger goal, he said, is “spreading happiness” in what has sometimes been a somber country." Or this: "Unlike so many Saudi princes, he wasn’t educated in the West, which may have preserved the raw combative energy that is part of his appeal for young Saudis.". If someone were to write such propaganda about North Korea, he would have been accused of treason.

"Change seems increasingly desired in this young, restless country. A recent Saudi poll found that 85 percent of the public, if forced to choose, would support the government rather than religious authorities on policy matters, said Abdullah al-Hokail, the head of the government’s public opinion center." Are you sure, David, it is not 99%?

I see that AJ + released a short video about Bill O'Reilly and Fox News. It would be nice if AJ + (which has deteriorated over time and has become a crude propaganda tool of the Qatari regime) would release a report about sexual harassment and discrimination in Aljazeera offices.

Of course, the article is shallow and impressionable and silly. What you expect in Western media about the Arab world. But Sultan Qassimi protested that the article did not talk about museums in Dubai. You can have Vegas with museums though. In fact, Vegas has many museums: don't forget the Wayne Newton Museum. But you can't deny the deep impact that Vegas left on the minds of oil sheikhs--aesthetically speaking.

Western and Arab (gulf and oil) propaganda have managed to always make Syrian rebels as victims and to conflate them with Syrian civilians. So the rebels are victims even when rebels car bombed civilians in buses in Rashidin, Western media and Arab gas and oil media managed to make the rebels as victims by promoting crazy scenarios of the bombing and by peddling one picture of a Syrian "activist-journalist"--whatever that means in journalism schools--crying as to show the rebels and supporters as victims even when they (the rebels) are the perpetrators of bombing. So they can't lose sympathetic media coverage no matter what they do or bomb.

I am told that while Ken Roth has been at the helm of Human Rights Watch since 1993, securing what he calls "pro-Israel" funding, he realized that he can't mock rulers who don't allow for succession to their rule while he remains in control of an ostensible human rights organization. I have it on good authority that he has prepared his son, Muhammad bin Ken, to take over the organization after him. Long live peaceful transition to new blood.

What kind of credibility does Human Rights Watch have when it has been ruled since 1993 iron-fistedly by one man, and one man alone. All other Western human rights organizations allow for transfer of power in the leadership and the infusion of female leadership except this organization: what kind of message does this send when one man has ruled that organizations for several decades now?

Here is how Human Rights Watch operates: when it comes to foes of the US (like Russia or Syrian regime), they categorize their actions as war crimes based on youtube and tweets of Syrian rebels. But when it comes to war crimes by US or Israel, they urge caution and then they say that an investigation is needed. After they conduct their own investigation, they rule thus: the US (or Saudi regime or Israel), MAY HAVE committed war crimes. Look at this lousy language of a US war crime: "Serious violations of the laws of war can amount to war crimes. These include deliberately targeting civilians or civilian objects (including mosques), knowingly launching indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks resulting in death or injury to civilians, or being criminally reckless in so doing. The US authorities’ failure to understand the most fundamental aspects of the target and pattern of life around the target raises the question whether officers were criminally reckless in authorizing the attack."

Monday, April 17, 2017

The purpose of this course is to introduce participants to past and present non-traditional strategic leaders, largely from the Islamic world and Asia, to understand how these leaders applied or misapplied the elements of strategy to achieve their objectives. We look at range of leaders, starting with possibly the most famous strategist in the business world, and of Arab decent, Apple Inc co-founder Steve Jobs. We also look at the strategic approaches of H.H. Vice-President Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid al-Maktoum, Saladin, Khalid Ibn Waleed, Saddam Hussein, Ayatollah Khomeini, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Gandhi, Mao and South Korean leader Lee Kuan Yew. This elective course gives the participants an opportunity to apply models of strategy used throughout the academic year to non-traditional strategists in areas of military, economic and political aims. It also provides participants an opportunity to compare and contrast the strategic approaches of different leaders." Notice that Lee Kuan Yew, the former Primer minister of Singapore became South Korean. (thanks Noureddine)

Sunday, April 16, 2017

I remember that when Turkey was under the rule of Military generals and its alliance with Israel was closer, I never heard any complaints from Western governments and media about lack of democracy in Turkey.

"Dozens of people were killed in the Syrian city of Aleppo on Saturday when a car bomb struck a group of buses carrying residents and fighters who had been evacuated from two besieged towns the day before." How were they killed? And who killed them? A hurricane? He then seems to provide justification for the siege and murder of the civilians of the two villages: "two Shiite villages in Idlib Province that are loyal to President Bashar al-Assad". Imagine if he were to refer to residents in Rif Idlib as "an area loyal to Al-Qa`idah".

"“We mean business,” the CENTCOM spokesman said. “President Trump said prior that once he gets in he’s going to kick the S-H-I-T out of the enemy. That was his promise and that’s exactly what we’re doing.”"

Western supporters of Syrian rebels claim that they can't condemn bombing by rebels because there aren't claims of responsibility for their bombings. But the lack of claim of responsibility does not stop them from condemning bombing by the other side. Find another excuse, please.

This is the case in the mainstream media: they refer to racism and sexism which they approve of as "controversial "or "provocative". Look at this unscientific survey: they don't even tell us how many women and minorities were included in the survey. And why would the surveyed professors be a barometer of sensitivity?

"Israeli authorities have detained approximately one million Palestinians since the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 and the subsequent occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip in 1967, according to a joint statement released Saturday by the Palestinian Committee of Prisoners’ Affairs, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS), and the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS). “The question of Palestinian prisoners is central for the Palestinian cause,” the statement affirmed, two days before Palestinians mark Palestinian Prisoners’ Day on April 17. The groups said that Israeli forces detained hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during the first and second intifadas, which they referred to as one of the “most difficult historical stages” of Palestine. During the First Intifada, which lasted from Dec. 1987 until the Madrid Conference in 1991 aimed at reviving the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, scores of Palestinians were detained by Israeli forces as a result of the largely nonviolent uprising which relied on various campaigns of civil disobedience. In 2000, the Second Intifada broke out — known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada — after then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in an act of provocation, causing heavy clashes to break out between Palestinians and Israeli forces, which developed into a full-scale uprising. According to the joint statement, by the time the uprising ended in 2005, Israeli authorities detained some 100,000 Palestinians, including 15,000 minors and 1,500 women, and 70 Palestinian lawmakers and former ministers."

"All U.S. presidents assume the right to bomb, attack, invade and interfere everywhere, including places like the South China Sea. Obama called it “projecting U.S. power.” Hillary would’ve bombed Syria long before Trump did." (thanks Amir)

This article says: "the outside world has been forced to rely to an unusual degree on information gleaned from the Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube accounts of opposition activists for any evidence of what was happening in Syria. But that was largely the result of an intentional strategy by Assad’s government, which made it almost impossible for foreign correspondents to report freely from inside the country, and then contested the reliability of social media evidence from opposition activists it sought to tarnish as Islamic extremists." OK. 1) there is no mention to the kidnapping, harassment and murder of reporters by Syrian rebels. 2) there is no mention that "the outside world" (he means Western media and Gulf regime media) relies on social media ON PURPOSE and not by accident because the accounts of Syrian rebels is political convenient. 3) reporters can't report freely in government areas OR IN REBEL areas. 4) please desist from this silly notion of "opposition activists" as journalist. This is like talking about "regime activists" as journalists. Where do I go now for skeptical and deconstructive journalism on Syria?

The Jordanian regime banned the book by Ziad Muna on the political and military experiences of Palestinian struggler, Nazih Abu Nidal. I recommend that book for its first-hand account of Black September.

It has become predictable. Syrian civilian victims are not even mentioned when they are killed at the hands of Syrian rebels. When Syrian rebels celebrate the killing of civilians Western media refuse to even blame Syrian rebels and create a situation to pretend the circumstances of their death are "murky". I knew when I saw the news that Western media would not be making a case and that Zionist journalists and pundits in DC (and the Arabs in the employ of Gulf regimes) won't even notice the civilian victims. In Syria, one side mourns some civilians and another side mourns other civilians. Both sides commit war crimes and both sides lie and for that I refuse the notion that one side (the Syrian rebels according to Western and Gulf regime media) possess moral superiority. The Syrian rebel propaganda scam is nothing like I have seen since the Western media promotion of the terrorist Afghan Mujhadin when Dan Rather snuck in Afghan garb and promoted the terrorist mujahadin. What happened in the so-called exchange of population (presented by Gulf regime funded DC think tanks as "demographic changes") is very clear: when Syrian rebels were cornered in one spot they offered to release the civilian hostages in Fu`a and Kafrayyah in exchange for their own release. They wanted to push for the flight. The civilian people in Fu`a and Kafrayyah have been besieged, shelled, starved and humiliated purely for their sectarian affliction and their plight never made it in the Western media. I don't think that their story will make it into the account of the war which will be told by a Syrian toddler who was just commissioned to write an academic study of the war by Simon and Schuster. I only wish that haters of Arabs in the West (i.e. Zionist reporters, columnists, and pundits) would not pretend that they care for the Syrian people when their propaganda interests dictate that pretension.

PS Why not mourn civilians in Syria regardless if they are killed by the regime or by the rebels or by their allies?

I recommend that you watch the PBS series on WWI. Of course, it contains the usual amount of US patriotic propaganda but the footage is incredible. It also has an useful section on the notorious Committee on Public Information. CPI proceeded the propaganda of Goebbels and it is really the first major government propaganda apparatus in modern (or pre-modern) times. It basically taught world governments how to sell a war and how to stifle dissent to war. The series does the typical American historical schtick: that Woodrow Wilson was motivated by "ideas" and that the thrust of US role in the war was in the realm of ideas...as if ideas are divorced from material interests. By the way, the best treatment of the experiences of Arab-Americans who fought in the WWI is still Mikha'il Nu`yaymah in his Sab`un. His experience (although he advanced fast as a polyglot with a law degree) embittered him toward the US and he wrote his most scathing condemnation of US war celebration.

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

"Mort Klein, president of a major Jewish pro-Israel group, berated a Forward reporter who called to ask about a joke Klein had made about black people being good dancers in a national magazine story.“What are you, stupid? What are you, stupid?” Klein said. “Each different peoples have different talents that everyone knows. And everyone knows that blacks are, on average, are better dancers than other people.” Klein told the Forward that it is “simply a fact” that “blacks are much better dancers.” He added that “most people know” that Asians “are smarter on average than other people in America.” Klein is the president of the Zionist Organization Of America, a leading right-wing pro-Israel group. He wasthe first Jewish leader to formally meet with the Trump administration after the inauguration. In a story published Sunday, Politico Magazine quoted Klein complimenting the dancing of members of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement by comparing them to African Americans. “They were dancing up a storm, these guys,” Klein said of a group of Chabad rabbis he saw dancing at a wedding, according to Politico. “I thought they were black. Instead they’re just black-hat,” he said, employing a term commonly used to describe observant Jews."

"Of the top 100 US newspapers, 47 ran editorials on President Donald Trump’s Syria airstrikes last week: 39 in favor, seven ambiguous and only one opposed to the military attack. In other words, 83 percent of editorials on the Syria attack supported Trump’s bombing, 15 percent took an ambivalent position and 2 percent said the attack shouldn’t have happened." (thanks Amir)

"The uncle of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad believes it is unlikely that he can hold onto power much longer. "The problems are now general to all parts of Syria - there are no places that have escaped violence - so I don't think he can stay in power," Mr Assad told the BBC [April 3, 2012]." (thanks Basim)

Of all the propaganda unclassified US intelligence reports, this is by far the worst one. It even concludes with a political speech/manifesto the likes of which I have not seen before in such reports. Some interesting nuggets:
Page 1: "according to observers at the scene". "we have confidence in our assessment". "a significant body of credible open source reporting" (read Saudi and Qatari regime media). "a significant body of pro-opposition social media reports". p. 2: "opposition could not have fabricated all the videos and other reporting".

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

The entourage is the same (with different clothing) and both leaders got their post because they are the song of their father. But this picture won't be circulated and won't be mocked because this guy is pro-US.

Anyone who uses the word Holocaust for anything other than the Holocaust is insulting the victims of the Holocaust. Similarly, anyone using the word Nakbah for anything other than Nakbah is insulting the victims of Nakbah.

"West African migrants are being bought and sold openly in modern-day slave markets in Libya, survivors have told a UN agency helping them return home." "But since the overthrow of autocratic leader Muammar Gaddafi, the vast, sparsely populated country has slid into violent chaos and migrants with little cash and usually no papers are particularly vulnerable."

Can you imagine if this announcement was made by an embassy of a country not aligned with the US? In an interview with Al-Hayat (the mouthpiece of Prince Khalid bin Sultan, and the paper which is chosen by the international committee for investigative journalism (whatever the official name is, which is the one which won a prize for the Panama Papers (a price for receiving a US government leak, I guess), as the representative of the Arab investigative journalism--I kid you not): the Cultural attache of the Saudi Embassy in DC admits that they monitor the social media accounts of Saudi students "to prevent extremist ideas" from influencing them. I kid you not.

PS Notice that the cultural attach is in charge of spying on students in Saudi embassy. Censorship and spying is considered a cultural act in the Saudi Wahhabi state.

The cleric who used to be dismissed as "firebrand" is now the new hero of Western media. Notice that stories about his recent statement talks about him calling for Asad to step down, but they don't mention that he denounced US wars and intervention and calls for the and to US and Russian intervention in Syria.

Comic by Terry Furry, reproduced from "Heard the One About the Funny Leftist?" by Cris Thompson, East Bay Express

As'ad's Bio

As'ad AbuKhalil, born March 16, 1960. From Tyre, Lebanon, grew up in Beirut. Received his BA and MA from American University of Beirut in pol sc. Came to US in 1983 and received his PhD in comparative government from Georgetown University. Taught at Tufts University, Georgetown University, George Washington University, Colorado College, and Randolph-Macon Woman's College. Served as a Scholar-in-Residence at Middle East Institute in Washington DC. He served as free-lance Middle East consultant for NBC News and ABC News, an experience that only served to increase his disdain for maintream US media. He is now professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus. His favorite food is fried eggplants.

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